<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>A Suggestion by dottie_wan_kenobi</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28585185">A Suggestion</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/dottie_wan_kenobi/pseuds/dottie_wan_kenobi'>dottie_wan_kenobi</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>January Prompt Event [4]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Batman - All Media Types</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Consent Issues, Dysfunctional Family, Ella Enchanted AU, Family Dynamics, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Hurt/Comfort, New Titans Issue 055, No Sex, Post-Jason's Death</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-01-06</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-01-06</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-13 05:54:21</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,734</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28585185</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/dottie_wan_kenobi/pseuds/dottie_wan_kenobi</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>“I suggest you leave,” Bruce said coldly. “And give your key to Alfred on your way out.”</p><p>---</p><p>Ella Enchanted AU + New Titans #55 (the issue where Dick confronts Bruce after Jason's death)</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Dick Grayson &amp; Alfred Pennyworth &amp; Bruce Wayne</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>January Prompt Event [4]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/2087082</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>108</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Bat Family 18+ Discord Server January Prompt Event</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>A Suggestion</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Posting this way early for Day 11: "Don't leave me."</p><p>Thank you to Marz for the ideas, and Aelig, Shell, and CK for looking this over for me! Love y'all :smek:</p><p>Jason's death isn't talked about directly here, but they're all definitely grieving and think about how he's longer with them. Near the very end, slight warning for description of a dead body, but it's like the vaguest thing ever</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>“I suggest you leave,” Bruce said coldly. “And give your key to Alfred on your way out.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Dick stood stock still for a long moment. Staring at Bruce’s back, he felt the words sinking in, cutting through the haze of anger and betrayal and grief like nothing else has since he came home and found out what happened. Everything has glanced off—the concern of his friends, the hounding of the paparazzi, the nagging sense that Bruce was not okay, the impending reality that he would never get to speak to or see Jason again.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But this made it through his defenses. Of course it did.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Dick tried to resist, like he always did when someone gave him an order he didn’t want to follow. He tried to stay still, to urge his legs and feet to not do anything. He tried to convince himself that he was a marble statue and that there was nothing in this world that could make him move if he didn’t want to.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But Bruce hadn’t asked, or offered, or plead. He’d told Dick to leave.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Dick was helpless to stop himself. Without his permission, he took a step toward the stairs leading out of the Cave, then another and another. He grit his teeth and pushed against his own mind, tried to order himself to turn around, to go to Bruce and scream in his face, but it didn’t happen. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He couldn’t stop until he was standing in front of Alfred, who was hovering at the bottom of the steps, his face unusually expressive as he looked on with horror. “Master Dick,” he said, voice weak and quiet.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It had been years since Bruce ordered him around like that. Years since Bruce realized that Dick couldn’t say no to commands from other people, years since he started watching how he spoke and years since he stopped forcing Dick away after arguments. Alfred had followed along, the both of them only ever telling him what to do when it came to patrol. Even chores were requests. He still did them, of course. But he wasn’t ordered to.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It made all the difference in the world to Dick. His parents had been like that, too, carefully asking things, carefully avoiding certain phrases. He’d been utterly terrified to move in with Bruce, to be ordered around. It was—and still was to that day—very hard to talk about the curse he’d been under his whole life. Part of it had even been that he couldn’t explain it to people, couldn’t get the words “I was cursed to follow every order I’m given” out loud. They stuck in his throat and choked him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>(”I can’t say no to things,” he usually said. He kept his voice and body language as strong and impassive as he could while he did, leaving no room for weakness. “Please don’t tell me what to do. I can’t say no.”)</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Everyone who knew—his parents, Bruce and Alfred, his closest friends and every Titan, past and present—had been good about it. They’d all slipped up a few times but they caught on quickly and didn’t use it against him. But there was always a risk that someone would find out and they’d use it for the wrong reasons, that they’d hurt and control him as much as they wanted without a care for his own wishes.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>They hadn’t told Jason yet. He was starting to catch on and so they’d been planning to talk to him about it soon, but… he and Dick rarely worked together, meaning he wasn’t in danger on the field if something happened to Dick. And being younger, he was shy enough that he didn’t boss Dick around much at all. There’d been no real reason to tell him yet.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Now it didn’t matter.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Dick looked up into Alfred’s face, and something inside of him—a very small part—soothed. Yes, this was right. He pulled the key off his ring, the one he’d had almost since he first moved in as a child, and held it out for Alfred to grab.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He did, his gloved fingers taking the cold metal and curling around it once it was fully in his hand. There was a slight tremor in the movement, and Dick noticed it immediately. Alfred wasn’t one to quail under pressure or emotions or anything at all. Dick could feel himself starting to shake too. Mimicking his grandfather, he curled his fists to try to hide it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Master Dick,” he said again. His voice was stronger this time, his eyes trained right on Dick’s. “You don’t have to go.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The words washed over Dick with a shudder. It was what he wanted—not going. He wanted to stay. He wanted to march over to Bruce and punch him in the face. He wanted to go upstairs to his old bedroom and sleep for a hundred years—hopefully then he’d be rid of all the pain and guilt he was drowning in. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He wanted to have been born without this stupid, awful curse.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But it wasn’t an order. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Have to</span>
  </em>
  <span>—giving the illusion of a choice. And </span>
  <em>
    <span>have to</span>
  </em>
  <span> didn’t stand a chance next to </span>
  <em>
    <span>I suggest</span>
  </em>
  <span> and </span>
  <em>
    <span>give your key</span>
  </em>
  <span>.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Dick tried to stay there in front of Alfred. He widened his eyes as he stared back, hoping Alfred would get the message to say it again, more firmly this time. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Don’t leave.</span>
  </em>
  <span> That was all he’d have to say. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Don’t leave, </span>
  </em>
  <span>and it would override Bruce, and Dick wouldn’t have to walk away from his home, wouldn’t have to leave this place broken and empty and ringing with sudden silence.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It didn’t work. His body moved without his permission. Keys still in hand, he stomped clunkyly—every single step a battle that Dick fought and lost—to his bike. He threw his leg over and sat there for a long, long moment before he turned on the engine.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The roar filled the whole Cave, and Dick flinched against the loud sound, even though he was expecting it, even though he’d heard it a hundred times before.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Master Bruce,” Alfred said from behind him, urgency in his tone. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Dick reached out and grabbed the handle bars as he heard the cape swishing, a few near-silent steps in his direction. “Please,” Bruce said suddenly. He sounded wrecked, so unlike the man who’d been shouting at Dick just minutes ago, who’d coldly told him to go and not to come back. “Please, don’t leave me.”</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Please.</span>
  </em>
  <span> Giving the illusion of a choice. Like Dick could say no, like he could do whatever he wanted. He </span>
  <em>
    <span>wanted </span>
  </em>
  <span>to stay. He wanted so badly to stay.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But it wasn’t an order. He revved the engine, put his foot on the gas, but didn’t press down, not yet. He looked over his shoulder—it was a loophole he was going to take full advantage of—and saw them both standing there. Alfred looked miserable, his eyes intense and his face stiff as he took in what felt like it was going to be the last glimpse of each other. Bruce was still fully kitted out in his Batman costume, and though his face was mostly covered, Dick could see clear as day that he was sorry. He always got this uncomfortable little moue, a tension in his jaw and shoulders. He hated being sorry. He hated anyone knowing he felt sorry. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>But he couldn’t hide from Dick. He couldn’t hide the wobble in his words or the fact that he’d just </span>
  <em>
    <span>plead </span>
  </em>
  <span>for Dick not to go.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Come on, you bastard,</span>
  </em>
  <span> he thought, his chest and face aching with emotion and the cell-deep need to leave and not come back. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Tell me to stay. Tell me not to go. Something. Anything. Don’t let me leave.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>It was the first time he ever remembered wanting to be ordered to do something. It was the first time he was angry that Bruce and Alfred were so morally against taking away his autonomy.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He twisted around and pressed the gas and he left. The ache didn’t go away or lessen at all, no matter how far from home he got.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Left back in the Cave, Bruce didn’t move, utterly frozen as he stared down the dark, shadowed path his son had taken. His chest felt like it was breaking open, contained only by the thick kevlar still wrapped around him. He’d lost one son to his own stupidity, and now the other had just run away like it was nothing. Even though Bruce had begged him to stay.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He knew what he said was a mistake. He couldn’t imagine life without Dick in it, and he was so, so goddamned thankful that he didn’t have to face the impossible, unknown reality of life without Jason. But that gratefulness was buried deep under layers of regret and gut-twisting pain, and it didn’t unearth itself until it was almost too late.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“He just left,” Bruce said numbly, beyond any emotion other than shock. Dick didn’t run away from things unless he was forced to. He couldn’t believe—</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You told him to,” Alfred replied, his words stiff. “You told him to go.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I didn’t,” Bruce refuted. He still didn’t move—it was impossible to look away. He kept having to stomp down the crushing hope that maybe Dick would turn around and come back. (</span>
  <em>
    <span>At least he could,</span>
  </em>
  <span> the part of him that was stuck, forever, in Crime Alley, in Ethiopia hissed. </span>
  <em>
    <span>If he really wanted to.</span>
  </em>
  <span>) “I said ‘I suggest’. And I told him not to go.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I believe you said for him to give his keys on his way out. That’s an order if I ever heard one.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Bruce’s mind was a jumble, hazy with smoke and pearls and blood. He could hardly remember what he ate for breakfast or what he did on patrol. Why would he say that? He didn’t want to lose Dick. He couldn’t bear to lose another person, another son, another piece of his very soul.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He stared down the curving, stone road that lead up and out into the yard. Dick could have come back, but he wouldn’t. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>His hands were shaking. He looked down at them, remembering a weight in his hands, a weight that would never go away or move or play or smile ever again. What had he done?</span>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>You can find me on tumblr at <a href="https://dottie-wan-kenobi.tumblr.com">dottie-wan-kenobi</a></p><p>If you liked this, please consider leaving a comment, thank you! &lt;3</p></blockquote></div></div>
</body>
</html>